Toughness was never an issue for Jack O'Callahan. He was from Charlestown, Mass. He didn't brag on the countless stitches and busted teeth then -- "There were a lot tougher guys than me in Charlestown" -- and he doesn't brag on 'em now, but he does allow that when he was 13 and 14, he played softball on a team that went up against the weathered cons at Walpole State Prison.

The Walpole games weren't as threatening to those teenagers as you might think. "A lot of guys, their uncles and fathers and cousins were up there," O'Callahan notes.

When the late Herb Brooks was shaping the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, the coach was looking for more than toughness. He needed smarts, passion and the discipline not to retreat into the leaden NHL game when the agile international teams put the pressure on.

He found the whole package in O'Callahan, three of his Boston University teammates -- Dave Silk, Mike Eruzione and goalie Jim Craig -- and another 16 "students," as the Russians were still calling them years later, youngsters who didn't have a prayer against those lifers from the Red Army ... and thumped 'em 4-3.

On July 19-20, four teammates from the Miracle ("We didn't think it was much of a miracle," O'Callahan insists) on Ice will be in town for the 25th anniversary of Ronald McDonald House Charities in Oregon.

O'Callahan, Silk, Rob McClanahan and Phil Verchota will appear at a Sunday night social at Nike's Tiger Woods Center, then play Monday in the annual Ronald McDonald House golf tournament at Pumpkin Ridge.

Their appearance here speaks to their commitment to the charity and to Mike Rich, who wrote the final screenplay for the 2004 film, "Miracle," and is chairing the event.

And their appeal testifies to the charismatic place of that hockey game in our collective memory.

Whatever moment you remember -- Al Michaels asking about the power of belief, Craig searching for his father, or Eruzione, later, beckoning his mates to the medal stand -- you remember that winter day.

The Russians were in Afghanistan, America was held hostage in Tehran and Jimmy Carter was decrying our "crisis of confidence." Only 13 days earlier, the U.S. team had played the Soviets in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden and lost 10-3.

But Brooks -- still haunted by being cut from the U.S. squad that won the gold at Squaw Valley in 1960 -- had artfully prepared his team, unifying his charges by providing them with a common enemy.

"He never played us off against one another," said O'Callahan, who injured his knee in that exhibition loss and toughed it out at Lake Placid. "He just set the bar really high, and said, 'If you don't find a way to get to it, I'll find someone who will.'"

The result was the sort of conditioning and resilience that allowed the Americans to outscore their opponents 16-3 in the third periods of the Games ... and outscore the Russians 2-0 in the period all the uncles, fathers and cousins remember.

Reserve goalie Steve Janaszak would later tell Sports Illustrated the locker room was quiet afterward, "absolutely quiet. Some guys were crying a little. You got the impression that the game wasn't over because no one is ever up a goal on the Russians when a game is over."

Twenty-nine years later, that margin still stands. Drop by the Tiger Woods Center a week from Sunday, and you'll meet four guys who are still bound to one another like brothers, and, Rich promised, "get a peek behind the curtain of the greatest sporting event folks have ever seen."

Even better, you'll support a charity that provides shelter each night for as many as 40 families with seriously ill children, kids who teach us all a little more about toughness each precious and unforgettable day.